Figure 6 | Location of possible continental fragments in the Indian Ocean. These include Mauritia (brownish shading), Laxmi Ridge and the Seychelles (yellowish shading). During the opening of the Mascarene Basin at about 84Ma, India, together with most of Mauritia and the Seychelles/Laxmi Ridge, broke away from Madagascar. Mauritia was subsequently fragmented into a ribbon-like configuration because of a series of mid-ocean ridge jumps 2 , which were partly related to the Marion plume and later the Reunion plume (after 66Ma). The current configuration with Mauritius/Cargados-Carajos Banks/Nazareth/Saya de Malha forming the Southern Mascarene Plateau (part of the African/Somali Plate), and with the Laccadives and Chagos being part of the Indian Plate, arose at 41Ma (black arrow shows where Chagos originated at 41Ma). North of Mauritia, seafloor spreading was initiated between the Laxmi Ridge and the Seychelles at around 62–63Ma, and the Seychelles became part of the African/Somalian plate after 61Ma when seafloor spreading in the Mascarene Basin ceased 2 . Background bathymetry is ETOPO1 47 and continental plate polygons with continental-ocean boundaries are from Torsvik & Cocks 48